Enough Already

“The Handmaid’s Tale,” Hulu, Season 1-3 / Ep. 9

Based on the famous Margaret Atwood book, this dystopian serial TV series has gone beyond the book for 2 seasons.  It is centered on a theocratic anti-female counter-revolution named “Gilead” taking over part of the United States.  The series has become, not a story by a socially progressive Canadian woman writer, but by Americans whose sense of politics is primitive, weak and conservative.  Why do I say this? 

Moss-June-OfFred-OfJoseph - Of Closeups

The Guardian has already noted the series' continuing festival of brutality meted out “to those who dare question” the religious regime.  Electric cattle prods, radioactive poisoning, brutal labor, fingers chopped off, eyes poked out, tongues removed, frequent hangings, M16s blasting heads. Saudi Arabia anyone? Accompanying this is an atmosphere of surveillance and informing, confessions, prison slavery, rape, guilt and overwhelming fear.  People veer from being completely cowed to lashing out to kill their oppressors. 

This in a color-coded caste society organized around Commanders, Wives, Aunts, Guardians, Eyes, Handmaids, Marthas, Jezebels and rural slaves doing mining work.  Girls in pink are future baby machines.  Not sure who does the productive work in the cities, as they are not shown, per usual.  Workers are 'los invisibles.'  

There are bits of evidence of ‘an underground’ and references to a civil war front around Chicago (which Gilead later takes…) but the story really centers around only one person.  Her name is OfFred and then OfMathew - religious names for June based on her commander.  This is actually actress Elizabeth Moss, an acolyte of Scientology in the real world.  She is trapped as a baby-maker for fundamentalist Christian Dominionists who treat women like second and third class citizens.  If you are sick of staring at close-ups of her face and blue eyes, join the crowd.  June is an ordinary, somewhat superficial white-collar liberal from Boston forced into a fascistic new world.  No more visits to Starbucks!

The story centers on her individual struggle alone.  She somehow gets to rebel and resist in small and larger ways without having her nose chopped off – which would of course damage the story as she’s quite cute when she gets out of that damn white nun's cowl and red cloak.  At this point her one obsession is not bringing down or joining the underground – but getting her two real kids to safety in Toronto where her husband now lives.  They have been taken from her. The focus on ‘the children’ is not just relegated to the religious fascists – it becomes hers too and the audience’s as well.  The adults don’t count as much, per usual.

The second and third seasons try to make us believe that a few Commanders or a Wife may become part of the resistance.  (S3,E10 focuses on this...) We even get to see if Commander and Wife Waterford can repair their marriage relationship!  Ahhhh…how sweet.  Even Aunt Lydia, the Handmaid’s virtual prison commander, gets a weird back-story prior to Gilead.  At the end of a date the somewhat overweight and dowdy Lydia grabs her date’s crotch and he says ’he’s just not ready yet.’ She turns into a she-devil after that, taking a child away from her working-class parent.  What?!

There is another weird scene where some protesters accost a Canadian government representative for negotiating with Gilead.  As if many in Canada would not actually hate what the U.S. has become – much as they do now for the Trumpist USA.  Canada has been a refuge for native Americans, slaves, anti-war activists, soldiers and now immigrants.  Though in other ways the Canadian government has also been a U.S. lapdog for years.  The political identity of that government is left unnamed, as are political identities in the rest of the show.  You see, its all about individuals and emotions.

This is all done in very well-composed, perfectly colored, moody and repetitive film shots.  Quite gorgeous if you ignore the content.  The turning of the vertical Washington Monument in D.C. into a giant cross with the adding of a massive horizontal beam was a nice touch. 

So in this series, mission one is to terrorize the audience.  Mission two, individualize the story and virtually ignore a collective rebellion.  Mission three, humanize the oppressors and try to recruit them.  Mission four, make theocratic fascism seem unstoppable. They change their tac at the end of the 3rd season. June gets tougher and with the help of one Commander organizes a local rebellion and jailbreak and is successful.  Finally!

Other reviews on dystopian issues, use blog search box, upper left:  "The Handmaid's Tale" and "The Heart Goes Last" (both by Atwood); "Catastrophism," "The Hunger Games," "Blade Runner" and "Do Android's Dream of Electric Sheep" (both by Dick); "Golden Age of U.S. Television," "American War," "War for the Planet of the Apes," "The Road" (McCarthy); "Good News" (Abbey); "World War Z," "Cloud Atlas," "Divergent."

And I watched it on tvonline.cc.

The Kultur Kommissar

July 23, 2019